WILLIS
EDWIN LEONARD, builder and real
estate man of San Bernardino, is a very signal example of what a man can
accomplish who makes his work of paramount importance and who is
temperamentally gaited to do things on a big scale. It is claimed that
every man has some project that to him is of cardinal importance. Mr.
Leonard's interest has been in building, for which he has a singular
aptitude and in which he has made a signal success. He has been a
builder of homes, houses which are the homes of hundreds of happy
families, many of them architecturally beautiful within and without but,
whether large or small, built upon honor and contributions to the
progress of the city and to the happiness of its inhabitants.

In his building Mr. Leonard is
master of every detail, and he is meticulously careful that there shall
be no slip-shod methods of loose ends and and his business policy has
always been against the too prevalent idea that whatever is profitable
is right. Builders of homes which can be placed within reach of families
promote the welfare not only of the people interested, but are vital
factors in the upbuilding of the city at large. A city of homes is a
city which will grow and expand, for a man who owns a home, or who is
buying one, is always interested in anything and everything which
affects his city and takes an active part in its affairs, where renters
and apartment house dwellers have no interest whatever in municipal
affairs.

Mr. Leonard was born in
Waterton, Wisconsin, January 27, 1863, the son of Ira E. and Maria
(Shepherd) Leonard. Ira E. Leonard was probably the most popular and
prominent man of his home city in Missouri. He was an attorney and was
born and educated in New York state, moving to Waterton, Wisconsin, in
1862. Sometime later he moved to Missouri, where he was Judge of the
District Court during the stirring Ku Klux troubles. So successful was
his administration of his office that he was nominated for Supreme Judge
of Missouri. While he received the largest vote of his ticket he was
defeated because he was a Republican. While in Missouri, where he moved
in 1866, he was also attorney for the St. Louis & Iron Mountain
Railroad. His health failing he decided to go to Colorado, resigning his
offices and settling in Boulder, He practiced there for some time but
finally he decided to try the climate of New Mexico and selected Socorro
in that state for a home. Here he practiced until his death in 1889. His
wife was also a native of New York and she recently died in San
Bernardino at the age of 90. While Judge Leonard was in Boulder,
Colorado, he was one of the Regents of the State University.

Willis Edwin Leonard received
his education in Boulder, Colorado, first in the public schools and then
in the University of that city. At the age of 19 he moved to the city of
Socorro, New Mexico, remaining there for eight years when he came to San
Bernardino, where in 1889 he was in the stationery business with Mr.
Barnum for one year. At the end of the year he returned to Socorro and
was in the real estate and insurance business for four years, but he
could not forget San Bernardino and her attractions and in 1894 he
returned here.

For several years he was in
the department store business and then commenced his real life work,
handling of real estate and building homes. In the latter work he
specializes and he has placed homes within the reach of many by selling
them on the installment plan. In San Bernardino he has built and sold
over two hundred homes, while in the city of Long Beach he has built and
sold several homes on one tract, in addition selling 40 lots in the same
tract.

Mr. Leonard is a republican in
politics. While in Socorro, New Mexico, he was County Superintendent of
Schools, 1893-4. He is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, being an
elder of that church.

Source:
History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties
By: John Brown, Jr., Editor for San Bernardino County
And James Boyd, Editor for Riverside County
With selected biography of actors and witnesses of the period
of growth and achievement.
Volume III, the Western Historical Association, 1922,
The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL